


Antiquity

by StrayPaper



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Platonic Romance, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-08 19:03:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14700309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrayPaper/pseuds/StrayPaper
Summary: Bruce and Carrie Kelley contemplate how their age difference affects their relationship.Is it possible to write a Bruce/Carrie Kelley romance that doesn't automatically veer into creepy?I'm not sure.  But I gave it my best shot.SPOILERS for Dark Knight III: The Master Race.  This fic hinges on a pretty big plot point from that series.Carrie's an adult in this piece.





	Antiquity

Twenty-one today.

And when he’d handed her the new high-test line for her grapple, she'd hugged him with a force that would have bruised before. Before the Lazarus Pit and its dubious new lease on life. Hugged him as if it were one of the half-dozen more particular, more personal, gifts he'd considered and ultimately discarded. As if she knew how many secret hours he'd agonized over each one.

As if she knew what this gift's studied nonchalance had cost him. Maybe she did. She knew him well enough by now.

Alfred was the one with the knack for presents. Bruce wonders what Alfred's clinical eye would make of Bruce's offering. What Alfred might say. He doesn't wonder long. Alfred also had a knack for needling out his weaknesses.

And without his constant companion to analyze and criticize, Bruce finds he's having to do the lion's share of his own introspection these days. He doesn't like it. Never has. But it's necessary.

You can't defend against vulnerabilities unless you know them for what they are. And he knows he's vulnerable to her. 

He grants himself an indulgent moment to curse the pit and the monkey's paw of youth it bought him. 

Carrie's adapted to his physical changes far faster than he has, all things considered. Some nights, he still takes to the pavement a hair too gently, bracing for the groan of old knees. He stares too long in the mirror some mornings, tracing absent lines on his body, his face, his hands. The scars. Goddamnit. He’d earned those scars.

She takes his rejuvenation in stride; eager as always in anything related to the work. Eager to have him with her. She's already come up with a hundred new plans that incorporate his new abilities, that incorporate two instead of one. 

But she's not unaffected. He catches her in unguarded glances. Her eyes carry the same fondness, the same wry respect, they've had since the beginning, but there's something else now. And it's that heated thoughtfulness, that adult _want_ , that has him rattled. He knows she's good at getting what she wants.

She's been waking something in him, one raised eyebrow at a time. He'd rather sleep. Because even if this new body looks and feels young, it's a farce. He still thinks like an old man. 

For years, he’d admired her wit, her initiative, her guts and grit in the field. But she'd been a child then. Trainee. Soldier. As they’d grown together, so had her rank in his mind. Ally. Lieutenant. Only that. The two of them against the world day after day, and he'd never had one stray thought otherwise. 

He’d always known that she loved him. A point they’d devoutly ignored for the most part. It never affected her work. He felt no need to embarrass her with inept fumblings at explaining why her feelings would eventually pass. He trusted time to handle it more surely and succinctly than anything he could have said or done. One day, she’d become a woman, and she’d see things for what they were. She’d find a younger, stronger man, hopefully one who could match her. He didn’t want her to settle. He never wanted her to settle. 

She’d leave, of course. But loneliness was a familiar bastard. He’d bear its company gracefully.

Or time would absolve him of the dilemma entirely. The older he’d grown, the more likely that scenario. One day, he’d die. And she’d move on. Simple. Effective. Permanent.

The problem was, somewhere along the way, time turned traitor. Carrie had walked in wearing her new uniform. She’d told him that her tastes ran _darker_. And did he imagine the flirt in that line? He doesn't think so. She's Bat _woman_ now, she’d said. Not Batgirl. And in that heartbeat, he’d known it was true. Of course it was. He’d felt like he was meeting her for the first time. Grown, and beautiful. Not soldier, but peer. Partner. Equal. 

Now, when they take to the streets as a team his blood sings.

He wishes it were just lust. Lust is easily broken on the altar of self-discipline. He’s stepped over its corpse countless times. 

But lust doesn't explain the delicate way his heart skips when she leans against his shoulder late at night at the workbench. Or the pure satisfaction he gets from watching her float down into a fray. Lust is a cheap word to put to the warm buzz in his veins when she grins up at him with blood on her knuckles. And he knows, but hates, the more truthful word for what he feels. It's been so long, he barely recognizes it, but he remembers how it hurts.

Intellectualizing is a habit born of self-preservation. Practicalities and moral boundaries. He thinks about how it could complicate things between them, how it could jeopardize the mission. He thinks about what could go wrong. God, so much could go wrong.

Often, he wonders what very little he has to offer her that he hasn’t already given. Certainly not romance. He was never good at that, not even in his prime. Sex, he was good at, just like anything physical he put his mind to. But the idea of it with her feels peculiar and daunting, an uncharted shore through a dim spyglass. Here there be monsters.

So, whatever stubbornly unnamed thing he feels, he'll feel it in silence.

He wonders if she noticed it hiding earlier in the stiff lines of his arms when he returned her embrace. He wonders if she's caught him in unguarded glances of his own. He wonders, and he hopes he never learns.

Because despite all the days and nights he's spent traversing the moral grey, their past has formed a line between them that's all too black and white. She's twenty-one today.

And regardless of his new trappings, smooth skin, dark hair, and firm muscle, he knows exactly how old he is. 

Too old. 

Just too goddamned old. 

___

 

She's twenty-one today. And yeah, maybe she shouldn't have had her hopes up quite so high. It’s just an arbitrary line. She knows that. For sure. You don't wear down a mountain in a day. And he's harder than any mountain. After years with him, she could eat mountains for breakfast.

Besides, the waiting part is easier than it used to be. How many long nights have they spent dead still and silent with rain slipping down their necks under the cowls? She’s practiced under a master. She's got patience down cold now. She can wait.

And he remembered her birthday this time. Not just remembered, but thought about it, hard. She could tell. He was a little too slow to offer his gift. His eyes a little too sharp to see how she'd react.

Some birthdays, he forgets. She never minds. She knows Alfred was the one who handled all that stuff, and Bruce has done his best to adjust.

They’ve both had to do a lot of adjusting over the last few years. They’re good at it. It’s another reason why they fit.

She’s still jealous of how fast he’s adapted to the changes made by the pit, though. It’s harder for her. He walks into a room, coal hair and swagger, and sometimes, she stares. It makes her feel vulnerable. Open. She hates it. She hates it more when he catches her. She thinks she can feel a smirk hiding behind his eyes sometimes. But maybe she’s imagining it. Hope can cloud your judgment. Like he hasn’t told her that enough times.

But the pit, at least, helped her understand him better. Figure she gets it now. That look of sullen disgust he used to have after training alone, like he was always falling short of some invisible mark. Back then, before, she couldn’t guess what mark it was. Definitely not an enemy or job. He never compared himself to those. He never wondered if he’d be up to a task. It had to be done, so he’d do it. That was that.

Now she knows he was only weighing and measuring against himself. 

When he’d told her before about how he was missing steps, about the old days, about changing tactics and sending her solo, she had only thought she’d understood. She’d seen him beat governments and gods. How much better could he really have been? 

But she watches him train now, brute strength and stealth combined with the added decades of brains. He’s not chasing old records anymore. He’s breaking them. And sometimes when she sees him land a jump no man could make or execute a hold no one has tried, she’s the one who misses a step. She hates that too. She hates that he may see it. Worse, that he may mark it down to superficial infatuation. That he may think what she feels is new—like his appeal is shifting sand. 

It’s bedrock, calcified. 

There’s never been anyone else for her but him. She thinks that’s one of the reasons it’s taken so long for him to see her as a woman, but she could never come up with any good fix for it. Throw herself at someone else just for the experience? Just to learn how it's done? Just to see what he’d do? That’s kid’s stuff for sure. Besides, even when he had greyed temples and lined eyes, she could never get into imagining anyone else’s arms around her. Anyone else’s hands touching her.

Not like she didn't think she could find someone. If she wanted. She believed in herself way before he came along. Figure she had to. She didn’t need him for that. But he did make her feel seen. Useful. Useful to him, despite his strength. And she’ll admit that might have been the start of it. The kickstart to her ego from the value she found in his gaze.

But she never imagined she’d be the one gazing, seeing him the way she sees him these days. She watches the ripple of sweat and skin across his back, the bunch and release of his thigh as he pushes out of a roll, and she has to remind herself to breathe. No. Her attraction isn’t new. But she’s learning what he knew in all those past late nights he spent on the mat. The only man who could ever really compete with him was himself. Who else could she ever have loved, after him? 

Not that the physical is the big deal anyway. It’s just him. All complicated, sure, angry skill wound tight. He’s lightning, and drawing him in has always been standing on a wet high hill with fingers crossed. 

She told him, once. Stupid. Totally. She knew she was too young. She knew how he saw her. Kid with a crush. And the worst part was, she knew he was right. She was dying, she thought. She had to get it out, she thought. But she knew he was right. So, she never said it again. 

Figure time would take care of things eventually anyway. She’d never grow out of how she felt about him, no matter what he thought. But she was pretty sure one day she was gonna grow _into _it. That one day, she’d stop seeing him as boss and start seeing him as partner. And he’d notice.__

__She thinks time has her back. She thinks one day might be turning into now._ _

__And it has nothing to do with him getting younger and everything to do with her getting older. Now, they see eye to eye. Now, when they take to the streets, they share point, share plans, share responsibilities. She thinks that’s what she wants most. She wants to share everything. She wants to break down whatever walls they have left between them and take anything else he has left to give. Then she wants to give herself back._ _

__She knows he’s not ready for that. She doesn’t know if the history between them helps or hurts. She thinks it probably does both. But it’s just that. History. As in, ancient._ _

__She’s twenty-one today. But if it doesn’t happen now, she can wait. Maybe it’ll be twenty-two. Or twenty-five. Or later. Doesn’t matter. She’s older, now. She’s patient, too._ _

__She can wait._ _

__They’ve got time._ _


End file.
